TravelCLICK buys Blue Square

25th Jun 2007

TravelCLICK has announced the acquisition of Blue Square
Studios, an award-winning provider of Internet business solutions.The acquisition creates an unrivaled platform
for hoteliers, combining the superior property merchandising and
distribution technology of TravelCLICK’s iHotelier central reservation
system (CRS) with the industry-leading web presence management technology
of Blue Square Studios. This groundbreaking combination will provide
hoteliers with capabilities not available to date in the hospitality
industry.
Phoenix-based Blue Square Studios pioneered dynamic website management
with a unique web presence management system known as the Hospitality
Toolkit(R) and combined it with award-winning design and SEO to create
superior hotel websites. Together with TravelCLICK’s iHotelier CRS and full
portfolio of Internet marketing solutions, including pay-per-click
advertising and real-time ROI reporting, the acquisition delivers a
revolutionary Internet marketing platform to the hotel industry from a
single provider.
“This acquisition represents a paradigm shift for the industry,” said
Robert Post, President and Chief Executive Officer at TravelCLICK. “Online
hotel merchandising is not just about design anymore. It’s about smart
technology that can tightly integrate the hotel website and the reservation
application to optimize the consumer experience and generate maximum
revenue performance for the hotel. We have worked with Blue Square Studios
for more than a year and have created a repeatable and scaleable Internet
marketing platform—one that enables hotels to take control of their own
websites to cost effectively and dynamically manage their website content.
Our integration of the Hospitality Toolkit with the iHotelier CRS provides
a powerful merchandising solution that has already delivered superior
results for such leading properties as ARAMARK Harrison Lodging, Classic
Resorts, and The Palms South Beach.”
Blue Square’s browser-based Hospitality Toolkit 2.2 enables hotels to
update their websites instantly and as often as they like with intuitive
site management tools that refresh web content with user-friendly
step-by-step processes. The toolkit manages and delivers rich media content
and integrates software modules to support dining reservations, guest
requests, restaurant menus, packages and specials, photo gallery, spa
treatments and more. The ability for hotel staff to execute real-time
updates also provides hotels with a unique crisis communications tool for
weather emergencies and other time-sensitive communications needs.
“We have used Blue Square’s Hospitality Toolkit, along with
TravelCLICK’s iStay booking engine, for several months now with amazing
results,” said Sarah Murov of The Palms South Beach in Miami Beach, FL. “We
are constantly refreshing our offers, our photo gallery, and our restaurant
and bar menus, plus providing third-party content feeds, such as a five-day
weather forecast. This combination of leading-edge technologies has allowed
us to take hotel merchandising to a new level, with higher conversions and
an enhanced online guest experience. There’s nothing like it in the
hospitality industry.”
“It is a natural fit for us to join TravelCLICK,” said Shane Ettestad,
former President and Chief Executive Officer at Blue Square Studios, now
Vice President of Internet Marketing Solutions at TravelCLICK. “The
integration of the Hospitality Toolkit with an award-winning single-screen
booking engine not only enables hotels to deliver the most dynamic shopping
and booking experience in the industry, but also allows them to target and
convert online shoppers more effectively and gain a huge competitive
advantage. This is the next evolution in Internet marketing and web content
management.”——-